Category Archives: Arts & Media

It’s the Christmas period and no doubt you’ve consumed just a few of Hollywoods finest flicks on TV while chowing down on your (halal) turkey yesterday.

So while you tuck in to some delicious left over turkey sandwiches today, I thought I’d give you a different look at what Hollywood could offer.

The clip above is the alternative ending from the 2004 film “Man on Fire” starring Denzel Washington. It’s one of my favourite films, revenge, redemption, pathos, flawed but a redeemable lead character, it has it all.

The film was directed by the late Tony Scott, and the above alternate ending is voice overed by Scott himself.

After watching the alternate ending on the DVD, I felt it was much better than the ending they actually put out, but of course, our protagonist winning by suicide bombing is never going to be allowed to air in cinema.

As the debate rages today over “Zero Dark Thirty” and it’s use of the cinematic portrayal of torture (we all know the CIA & Mi5/6 do it) in capturing Bin Laden and any bad guy or “ticking bomb scenario” that allows them to use torture, it becomes very interesting what Hollywood can frame as being a cultural norm and a taboo.

Here’s some suggested reading from my earlier posts on how Hollywood is so good at propaganda:

Where George Galloway failed on the UK version of this reality show, Sa’ar Szekely has succeded in airing the bitter truth of Israeli actions against Palestine.

After the first episode was aired, Facebook pages calling for the expulsion of Sa’ar “the traitor” or “the terrorist” from the show, started popping up, and inside the house, Saar was constantly attacked for his views:

“You need to wake up and realize that the only way to save this country is to remove it from this conflict and the only way to remove it from this conflict is to stop coveting more and more land, more and more power, and to realize that real power means stopping the fighting not prolonging it indefinitely.”

Israel prides itself on being the “only democracy in the Middle East” and yet has a massive issue with freedom of speech and reality.

It’s about time the younger generation of Israel were able to hold these views openly in public, without fear and reprisal from the leaders of their militarised nation.

“I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire. The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken. Israel is out of bounds.

The BBC refused to broadcast a humanitarian appeal in 2009 to help residents of Gaza rebuild their homes. It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.”

Have a read of what he has to say in the following excerpts from his book, and ask yourself if any of these would ever make it into any of the shows that pass themselves of as political satire comedy programmes.

The content of popular culture today in the mainstream is designed to be unchallenging, corny and weak, so the masses can take their hit without having to think and just like crack, it has an immediate high and leaves you coming back for more.

It is precisely why you get crap like Michael McIntyre and John Bishop being promoted to prime time, as they offer poor observational witterings on banal subjects like the school run. Any content that will challenge your thought process will either be shelved or given the midnight slot.

Work, consume, die, that’s all the system wants from you.

Work like a rat, consume crap that you don’t need, with money that you don’t have and then die.

The Akh is currently away and is working on a plantation picking bananas. He is developing a taste for tamales colorados and returns sometime in January 2012

The Akh stopped reading comics graphic novels a while back, but now and again there’s a story that gets me intrigued. Tipped off by one my “stans” to the machinations of Action Comics issue 900, which sees Superman renounce his American citizenship.

Now I know what you’re thinking, what do comics….dammit….graphic novels have to do with anything?

Well for one, they shape public opinion, and when that is of a cultural icon that is as American as cinnamon & apple pie itself, then perhaps we need to understand that the popular groundswell of public opinion within America itself is turning against it’s pro Israeli influenced government.

So let me break it down for you, despite very literally being an alien immigrant (like the yanks love to call them) Superman has long been seen as an emblem of American patriotism, a symbol of “truth, justice, and the American way”.

The symbolic resonance has always been there, from his embrace of traditional American ideals to the iconic red and blue of his costume.

However, what it means to stand for the “American way” is an increasingly complicated thing, both in the real world and in superhero comics, whose storylines have increasingly seemed to mirror current events and deal with moral and political complexities rather than simple black and white morality.

So what we had was Superman consulting with the President’s national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to non-violently support the protesters demonstrating against the Iranian regime, no doubt an analogue for the recent real-life protests in the Middle East.

The only bit of hokum there, is that it is Iran and not Egypt.

Superman replies that it was foolish to think that his actions would not reflect politically on the American government, and that he therefore plans to renounce his American citizenship at the United Nations the next day – because the American government do not want him to be on the side of the people, against the leaders installed to do America (read Israel) bidding.

The Akh has been saying it for years, and now even Superman himself agrees, it is America’s foreign policy, aided, abetted and influenced by Israel that is the cause for so much torturous woe across the world.

The film “Rambo” is a classic tale of how a anti-war book written about the post Vietnam era in America is hijacked by Hollywood to glorify violence and war, the exact psyche of the American system, that the author David Morrell examined in his 1972 novel “First Blood”.

If, like me you were a child of the Eighties, then you grew up on a diet of “big gun americana” movies, I’m talking about Stallone & Schwarzenegger and everything that promoted the american way.

It didn’t matter how crap the quality of your pirated VHS version was, Rambo was on heavy rotation where ever I went.

Years later I found out it was based on a book, and decided to have a read of it.

What I found out as a child barely into my double digits was that the film was far removed from the book.

Rambo first learns about the death of one of his former soldier buddies, the film doesn’t mention what the book did, and that was he died from cancer – the after effects of the american army spraying millions of litres of Agent Orange into the jungles of Vietnam.

Why would the American army – do a such a thing?

Yeah the Vietnamese were the bad guys, but why would the americans also kill their own soldiers (thought a 8 year old Akh).

Another example was that if you’ve actually watched the film, ask yourself how many people actually die?

The answer is one

The sheriffs deputy that gets hit with a rock and falls out of the helicopter (that’s what happened, I’m not making it up)

The book was far more brutal, Rambo killed literally every single figure of authority, or that represented the police or the army that he came into contact with, even the dogs weren’t spared.

Eventually the Colonel that Rambo served under in Vietnam is called up to reach out to his creation and after that speech he persuades Rambo to give up and escorts him out…and that’s where the film ends.

True to form, reading the book I was absolutely shocked as to what the ending was….and I only found out this week that the ending was actually filmed, but it didn’t make the final cut as it didn’t go down well with the test audiences.

I was over the moon to see Rambo fighting alongside the Mujahideen and kicking some russian ass, after all, isn’t that exactly what the power of a lobby should be? to use the mass media to win hearts and minds?

There was no book for Rambo III, but I sat glued to the end credits, and found that the film wasn’t made on location in Afghanistan, but filmed in israel, and what was even worse, nearly all the Afghan Mujahideen were played by israeli’s too.

I found out at a very young age that you shouldn’t believe what you see in the media. Perhaps Rambo left an indelible mark on my psyche too…who really runs Hollywood?

Zionist media magnate Rupert Murdoch has yet again successfully reminded Britain’s political elite who’s running the show, by getting them all to his summer party in the days when a decision is likely to be made on his News Corp’s 100% ownership bid of Sky TV.

“I have declared War on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win…I have blocked it using the powers that I have got”

Murdoch’s News Corp were ripe for a severe dressing down of their corporate prowess after the phone hacking scandal.

Last Thursday, David and Samantha Cameron as well as Labour leader Ed Miliband and shadow chancellor Ed Balls drank Moet & Chandon champagne and ate oysters with Rupert Murdoch.

Despite the Sun’s high-profile decision to back David Cameron in 2009, the Labour leadership know that alienating Murdoch would be foolish. There were more Labour figures at the party than Conservative ministers, a reflection, perhaps, of Labour’s continuing obsession with winning over Murdoch when they can, and trying to neutralise his title’s most venomous attacks when they fail. As well as Miliband and two of his closest advisers, Tom Baldwin and Stewart Wood, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander also partied.

Tory backbenchers were represented by David Davis and Nick Boles. Labour peer Lord Sugar, who had attacked NI over phone hacking earlier that day, was also there,

With Murdoch himself present, Cameron gave an early-evening keynote speech to the “CEO summit” organised by the Times – although the event programme published on the newspaper’s website coyly described him as an unnamed “senior cabinet minister”.

If you analyse what Murdoch and his News Corp have pulled off, despite being almost dead and buried, it’s quite remarkable how they have achieved their objectives:

By endlessly criticising the European Commissionvia their media outlets, News Corp managed an unconditional approval for their bid for Sky, effectively going over the heads of the line manager (the British Government) straight to the big boss’s office in Brussels.

Reduced the debate around media plurality to news ownership. This was a tactical master stroke. Fleet Street rivals are incredibly worried about the potential for News Corp/Sky to use online sports rights to help lift audiences for the Times and Sun websites with bids beyond the means of newspaper budgets. News Corp insists it has no such plans, but then, News Corp would say that wouldn’t it.

Knew the rules inside out. Takeover law in Britain works like this: it is for the would-be acquiror to propose undertakings in lieu of a referral to the Competition Commission. It is, in the case of media at least, for the minister to decide whether to accept or reject them. That gave the Murdoch organisation a key advantage: it could propose a concession it could perfectly well live with (a spun-off Sky News) rather than risk having one imposed on it didn’t care for (a sale of the Times titles).

Make no mistake for the prize is worth it. When completed, the News Corp/Sky deal would result in an unassailable position in the UK media scene, with full control of a company that is expected to double operating profit from last year’s £845m to £1.7bn in 2015, contributing 30% of income to a company that is already the world’s largest media group.

What we have in the UK is a coming together of the political elite and the media in a way that makes people outside these elite circles feel disenfranchised and powerless.

With an unassailable grip on the British media, News Corp has the ability to dictate to our elected political class as never before, no one in their right minds wants Fox News style propaganda being beamed on to our screens.

Sadly we live in a pathetically superficial culture, and your appearance dictates everything.

Your appearance comes far down the ranks of importance when it comes to presenting the news, The Akh is of the opinion that it’s the content and the balanced reporting that matters, not what the person is wearing or what their hair style is like.

"Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil & believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And Allah hears & knows all things."
(The Qur'an, Al-Baqara, 2: 256)

“Political authority & religion are kin brothers, neither would stand but by its companion; because religion is the foundation of political power & its pillar, & political power is the guardian of religion; political power is not established with a foundation & religion cannot be implemented without authority.”
- Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi

"War is not merely a political act, but also a political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means" - Clausewitz

"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)."
(The Qur'an, Al Hujurat, 49: 13)